Cable operators have widely deployed high-speed data services on cable television systems. These data services include a cable modem that allows a computer to communicate over an ordinary cable TV network Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) cable. A Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) connects the cable TV network to a data network, such as the Internet. The Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is one of the cable modem standards used for transferring data over the cable TV network.
Increasing demand for cable data services requires additional CMTS processing capacity and features. This can be prohibitively expensive since each CMTS provides routing, DOCSIS Media Access Control (MAC) processing, downstream signal modulation and upstream signal demodulation.